This is a real-life pitch for a new manifestation of National Public Radio in the United States. I have a friend who is the NPR correspondent here in Rio and she has offered to try to create an opportunity for me to pitch with her to their internal incubator. The deal is that she does the journalism and I do the other part. That other part is what this pitch tries to define.
NPR Generation (1 min audio pitch via Soundcloud)
NPR Generation (Notes for a 10 min Presentation)
FEEDBACK: The fact that I was completely engaged while reading through the transcript of your powerpoint only leads me to believe that the actual live presentation would make your venture a hard one for investors to pass up. I have little knowledge with regards to television and radio broadcasting, outside of my own interactions with these medium, so I certainly learned a lot from your pitch and find myself wanting to continue to learn more. You've done a great job of expressing the need for a youth-targeted approach to knowledge and information sharing, in a format that promotes active participation and social connection to the content. As a few others have mentioned, I didn't come away from your pitch with a clear idea of what your product will look like or how it will function. However, your decision to garner feedback through focus groups, piloting, and virtual conferencing shows that you are committed to developing a program that your audience will not only relate to, but will be active participants in the development and ultimate success of. Great pitch!
REVIEW: I'm a big sucker for CBC Radio, and your pitch spoke to me right away (no pun intended). I feel that your venture is very relevant and students should be engaged in this type of media. I like how you inserted yourself in between the different news clips, however, I found that your voice only came through my right speaker - was that intentional? I like the plan - especially a tight 14 day timeline. I do hope that it is truly achievable! You mention a social virtual space, but you do not say how that will be achieved? Will there be software programmers involved? I like the project, and I think it would be a minimal investment (no numbers are asked for), so I think there would be little risk. Good job!
Thanks for all of your encouragement and feedback. Randy, the 2-week part is the conditions set by the internal incubator, which is more geared towards story ideas. I’m not suggesting NPR stops doing what they do, just that they launch a new manifestation for youth. I could just call it a website, but that misses the jist. A community radio station is more than a transmitter, it is a building and a community of participants, and so we need to conceive of a new NPR website as also involving a community of participants as well as physical spaces.
The STIN diagrams are meant for someone who knows NPR but has never seen it diagramed like this before. One one level, I hope they just illustrates that there are people and machines and buildings involved.
The goal here is not to make money off of youth, and it is not to compete with Facebook so much as to create a noncorporate, autonomous space for youth to think critically about our evolving media culture and to just be, not as consumers, but as people.
You all need to imagine you are an NPR exec and decide whether you would fund this. It is not pitched to a venture capitalist.
Thanks, though, to all who have taken the time to look at this.
FEEDBACK: Wow, I learned alot in your pitch and venture Meril. I loved the way you used the audio in the pitch and the way you presented your venture. You made the problem clear, I had not given any thought to this idea, although it makes sense as I compare my radio time to my teenagers, and they are not getting their information through audio only. Your passion and work put into NPR and your venture is powerful and I wish you luck on your journey.
Being a huge fan of NPR and all of its programming, I was excited to see (I mean hear!) your presentation. Someone has to have a more creative idea to keep younger listeners supportive of public radio programming. Calling the shows Podcasts instead seems to attract a younger audience :) There are many people who depend on audio-only shows for news and entertainment due to disability or the ability to listen while driving or doing other things. The experience of sound without constant visuals is great. Good luck with this Meril!
FEEDBACK: Initially I was confused by your elevator pitch being audio, but then it all made sense. However, while the different voices made it interesting, I also found that they made it a bit difficult to follow. However, that could just be because it has been a long long day. When I jumped into your Venture Pitch it quickly becomes obvious that you have put a tremendous amount of thought, effort, and research into your pitch. You have excellent ideas for how NPR can transform and, hopefully, appeal more to the next generation. Well done and I hope it all goes well for you!
FEEDBACK - This was a great presentation that really brought home the merits of the medium and made me think about how much information I receive on a regular basis through the radio, podcasts and other auditory media. As an English as a second language learner I used to listen to BBC Radio and Voice of America on a regular basis to improve my listening and speaking skills. NPR is also a great organization and seeking to make a pitch for their internal incubator is a great idea for a radio/podcast format. So, great medium, great selection of audience for your pitch, but only one problem for me - what is your product and how do you intend to monetize it? I could tell that you feel passionately about this project, but in the end I was left wondering, is this another podcast? I know that some of your ideas are still in development. I believe that giving your specific product greater definition will make your pitch stronger.
FEEDBACK: Great work, Meril! I like your pitch’s emphasis on simplification and understanding NPR as an ecosystem. My main sense is that commentators and strategists have often misunderstood what radio listeners want in 2015. As your pitch notes, “In 2013, NPR launched Generation Listen, a poorly-conceived, half-hearted, and ineffective effort to recruit younger listeners, involving twitter hashtag memes, cross-country roadtrip tours, listening parties, and preaching-to-the-choir online testimonials.” However, “NPR needs to be saved from its aging self, but this young group of insiders are not quite pulling it off.” I think you’re on to something here. I’d argue that successful radio isn’t going to depend on the success of its hashtags. Consider a podcast like Serial—it was so successful because it fulfilled people’s basic desire to hear a fascinating story, told orally, unadorned by social media, apps, and auxiliary elements. Many of Serial’s listeners are young social media users, but they’re not listening to the podcast as a function of social media. After Serial came out, a gushing tech-enthusiast commentator on the local CBC station tried to explain how podcasts in the future would use interactivity, VR, and other tech elements, to make their podcasts as engaging as Serial was. I remember think how deeply the commentator seemed to have misunderstood what made Serial so successful. What made it so successful other than the story? A great website, linked to the podcast in design and theme, that provided auxiliary items like documents on the case, blog posts analyzing the case, profiles of the creators, and an email list notifying readers of updates. And later on, an active third-party community on Reddit that dwarfed its Facebook & Twitter discussions many, many times over. Maybe most importantly, the social media engagement emerged independently from the podcast itself; the creators never set out to create a social-media-engaged podcast.
Hi Meril, At first I wondered why you'd choose audio for your elevator pitch, but now it all makes sense, because you're talking about radio! So basically you're talking about shifting NPR from a content producer to something that hosts content to compete with the likes of Facebook? My Venture Pitch is sort of similar, but school-based so that it would forced upon students rather than them choosing it in their free time. The "#15 Girls" thing sounds really cool and maybe you should think more about producing more of this type of content, in partnership with the omnipresent 3 (Google, Apple, Facebook). Rather than trying to compete with them, why not just use them to spread the content NPR is creating, and have that content be more geared toward youth? I'm not sure what the 2-week window is that you're referring to on p. 9, but I suppose the NPR people will? Lastly, I found each STIN a bit confusing on its own, but comparing the two gave the very clear message that the website is much more central in the "NPR Generation" one. They might work better if they're presented side-by-side.
While I don’t have any firm numbers I would imagine radio stations of all types are having a hard time capturing that youth market place. I like how your proposal outlines a change to more of an ecosystem because I do think that is how youth are relating to media. A lot of companies think if they throw up a hashtag then it counts as interactive media, but of course it is much more complex than that. Good luck on your pitch IRL!
